Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill - Standing Committee A

[Mr. Eric Forth in the Chair]

Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

Clause 56 - Procedure for orders designating National Parks

Jim Knight: I beg to move amendment:
No. 151, in clause 56, page 22, line 3, at end insert—
‘or
(b)in relation to an order designating a National Park in Wales, a community council.’
Thank you and good morning, Mr. Forth. It is not quite as good a morning as those we have enjoyed during the Committee’s previous sittings, but the rain is welcome.
This is a technical amendment extending to Wales the provision that objections from parish or community councils alone will not be sufficient automatically to trigger a public inquiry. This is another of those occasions when I wanted to table the amendment before the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) did so. I hope that it is clear to the Committee that it was an oversight that we did not properly account for the situation in Wales, which was to some extent brought about by the extent of our consultation with our colleagues in Wales and waiting for them to be clear about what they wanted us to do in the Bill. I hope that the Committee will accept the amendment.

Roger Williams: I hope that the poorer weather is not a harbinger of less productive or constructive debate this morning.
I welcome the amendment; my only question is whether this part of the Bill refers to variations in national park boundaries or just to designation of new national parks. Variations in national park boundaries are particularly contentious in some national parks, not least Brecon Beacons national park.

Jim Knight: To some extent, I am moving to my notes on clause stand part, Mr. Forth, with your indulgence. The clause makes small modifications to the process of designating national parks, requiring parish councils to be consulted before the Countryside Agency, which will become Natural England, makes an order. It essentially corrects the out-of-date terminology for other tiers of local government.
The amendment removes the requirement to hold a public inquiry rather than a hearing if a parish council objects, although an inquiry would be required if there  were objections from other tiers. It removes a redundant provision to enable consideration of designation alongside that of development plans.
I hope that that answers the hon. Gentleman’s question.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 56, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 57 - Members of National Park Authorities

Roger Williams: I beg to move amendment:
No. 81, in clause 57, page 22, line 12, at end insert—
‘(ba)a specified number of directly elected members,’.

Eric Forth: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:
No. 82, in clause 57, page 22, line 18, leave out ‘and’.
No. 83, in clause 57, page 22, line 19, at end insert—
‘and
(c)directly elected members,’.
No. 84, in clause 57, page 23, line 10, at end insert—
‘(5A)After paragraph 3 insert—
“Directly elected members 3A(1)The Secretary of State may by regulations made by statutory instrument make provision for and in connection with the election of directly elected members of National Park authorities. (2)Regulations under sub-paragraph (1) are subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.”.’. Mr. Williams: I have pleasure in speaking to the amendment. Only my name appears on the amendments in this group, but I have all-party support for them. As the Bill progresses, I have no doubt that this matter will be raised again because there is real concern about the composition of national park committees. Hon. Members will agree that to some extent all forms of government are unpopular because unpopular decisions must be made from time to time and national parks are not immune from that. National parks are special-purpose local authorities and one expects local authorities to be directly accountable through a democratic process. That is one thing that national parks do not have and from time to time it creates resentment among the people who live in national parks.
3A(1)The Secretary of State may by regulations made by statutory instrument make provision for and in connection with the election of directly elected members of National Park authorities.
(2)Regulations under sub-paragraph (1) are subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.”.’.

Roger Williams: I have pleasure in speaking to the amendment. Only my name appears on the amendments in this group, but I have all-party support for them. As the Bill progresses, I have no doubt that this matter will be raised again because there is real concern about the composition of national park committees. Hon. Members will agree that to some extent all forms of government are unpopular because unpopular decisions must be made from time to time and national parks are not immune from that. National parks are special-purpose local authorities and one expects local authorities to be directly accountable through a democratic process. That is one thing that national parks do not have and from time to time it creates resentment among the people who live in national parks.
The concept of national parks is welcomed generally by people who live in this country, but sometimes the people who live in the national parks do not share that great enthusiasm, as I am sure that the Minister is aware.

Angela Smith: There is a claim that there is widespread support for the amendment, but the Council for National Parks does not support the measure. Will the hon. Gentleman comment on that?

Roger Williams: I am well aware that the Council for National Parks—a voluntary, not a statutory body—does not support direct elections to national park  authorities. The national parks establishment itself does not support direct elections. However, that is no reason why the issue should not be considered. Although I welcome the opportunity to move this amendment, it has come a little early as far as I am concerned. I just have not had the time to do the work, although I intended to do it in this Session in order to try to achieve legislation along these lines. The national parks establishment is a well-organised body and I have no doubt that it will express its views on this matter.
I shall set British national parks in the context of the family of international national parks. The Minister will be aware that IUCN, the World Conservation Union, has categories for national parks throughout the world. Some involve areas of land that are wilderness such as the national parks that were set up in the middle of the 19th century by Americans who were far-sighted enough to see that the expansion of towns and industry was threatening the fabric of their fantastic landscape. Those people will go down as pioneers of the national park movement and we owe them a terrific amount. If it were not for their impetus, many outstanding landscapes would have been lost.
The categories go from I to VI. Category I is for strict nature reserves. It states that the land will have very few residents and that there will not be any intention in the future of encouraging people to live there. It states:
“Ownership and control should be by the national or other level of government, acting through a professionally qualified agency, or by a private foundation, university or institution”.
In other words, the private sector or private people will have very little impact on those areas. Clearly, in Britain—a relatively heavily populated country—we will not have the opportunity to establish national parks in that category.
It comes as no surprise that the British national parks are in category V. When people in Britain first saw that category, they were rather disappointed because they have a high regard for our national parks and the work that they do. However, the categorisation does not reflect a scale of quality or commitment; it just reflects the fact that national parks in Britain are where people live and that, through their endeavours, they have created the quality that we seek to preserve. Category V states:
“The area may be owned by a public authority, but is more likely to comprise a mosaic of private and public ownerships operating a variety of management regimes.”
When I was the chairman of the Brecon Beacons national park, I often made the point that although we had a budget of—at that time—about £2 million, the impact that the national park could make on that area of about 580 square miles was limited compared with what private individuals and private businesses could do. The role of the national park was not to run that area but to take initiatives, show opportunities and encourage. That is the role of the national parks in this country.
In Britain, we have a different sort of national park to those found in other parts of the world. When national parks were first set up, the committees or the authorities were composed in such a way as to  establish that the parks were of national importance. They did not have direct elections as other local authorities did. The two types of representatives who sat on the committee were those appointed by local authorities and those appointed by the Secretary of State in Westminster—for England and Wales, at that time. Since the establishment of the Welsh Assembly, the latter group have included those nominated by the National Assembly for Wales.
I think it was the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Goodwill) who told me that in the national parks in his constituency, those appointed by the local authority were seen as having accountability through the democratic process. Of course, that does not always work and I shall point out one or two reasons why. First, people who put themselves forward for election to a local authority do not necessarily do so to contribute to the work of a national park. They may be interested in education, social services or a variety of other services delivered by local authorities. That is not true in all cases—I pay tribute to those from local authorities who sit on national park committees—but sometimes, in order to get enough people to sit on the committee, some of those who participate do not have a direct interest or an enthusiasm for contributing to the work of the national park. Just because someone puts themselves forward for election to a local authority, it does not follow that they have that necessary commitment. I am not sure how the legislation stands at the moment, but in the past local authorities have not even appointed people who were elected to those authorities. They appointed people from outside the authority for certain purposes.
People who live in national parks also take exception to the fact that some authorities do not appoint councillors who represent areas in the national park or live in the national park; they appoint councillors from outside the national park. It is not surprising that residents wonder where their representation, or the accountability, is on those bodies.
I know that in England parish councillors have a role and some are appointed by the Secretary of State, but there is another class of committee member appointed by the Secretary of State. I know that they are there to give reassurance that the national importance of national parks is reflected in their activity. By tabling the amendment, I am not saying that none of the people should be appointed by the Secretary of State or the National Assembly for Wales; I am saying that there should be a seasoning of the committee to include people who are directly elected.
What role would those directly elected people play? They would be people who actually wanted to sit on the committees of national parks and wanted to commit their time not to education or social services but to the role and function of national parks. They would be people living in the area who understood the reason why national parks had been established and were committed to furthering their purposes. They  would put themselves forward as people committed in that way with no other issues taking up their time. That seems a very good thing to me.
One may argue that those people could put forward their name to the Secretary of State, but some people do not want to have their membership decided on the basis of whether they are acceptable to the Secretary of State. They prefer to see whether their membership of the committee is acceptable to the communities in which they live and work.
There is another factor—whether people who live in national parks have the opportunity of contributing to the democratic process by selecting the people who represent them.

Angela Smith: In the Peak district, one of our prime residents is the Duchess of Devonshire. What would be the possibility of her being a directly elected member of the national park authority? Given her powerful status in the Peak District national park, how would that play in terms of democratic accountability?

Roger Williams: I do not want to speak on behalf of the Duchess of Devonshire, but I know that the Duke of Devonshire was highly committed to national park purposes.

James Paice: I suggest to the hon. Gentleman a response to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith), which is that there was a contradiction in her intervention. If the Duchess of Devonshire were democratically elected, the people who elected her would have answered the question. They would have trusted her with a position on the board.

Roger Williams: The hon. Gentleman anticipated what I was going to say. I was going to put in a caveat. One of my amendments states that the Secretary of State can by regulation determine the nature of the election and the composition of the board or committee that serves that national park. There may be something that rules out peers or peeresses from standing, but I would not welcome that. I would welcome the opportunity for anyone who lives in the national park to put their names forward. Whether they would be elected is another matter. It would depend on their commitment to that community and to national park purposes.
There is an argument that, because national parks are so important, democracy should not impinge on their functions in any way. However, one could advance the same argument for Cardiff, the national city of Wales, saying that it is so important that we should not have elections for Cardiff city council and that people should be appointed by the Secretary of State. The people of Cardiff would stand up as one to oppose that. It is not surprising that the people who live in national parks want the same ability to influence many of the decisions that affect their quality of life.
Therefore, the time has come to change the composition of national park authorities. The feeling that the purposes and functions of national parks will be let down because their activities will be badly influenced by democracy is a thing of the past. It has been shown to be a thing of the past by the newly established national parks in Scotland—Cairngorms, and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs—which were established about three years ago. In Scotland, 20 per cent. of the committees of the national parks are directly elected. That has been a huge success.
The early-day motion that I am tabling on the matter includes the name of a newly elected Liberal Democrat Member who worked for one of those national parks in Scotland. As an officer, he welcomed the fact that accountability had been introduced into the work of the national park.
When the elections took place for the Cairngorms national park authority, it was divided into five wards. There were at least four candidates in each ward. Six people stood in some wards. Turnout ranged from 48 per cent. to 66 per cent., which would, in today’s terms, be acceptable to Committee members. Therefore, the argument that democracy would not work and that strange people would be elected because people were not interested in participating in the electoral process has been absolutely hit on the head.
In summing up, the amendment would not introduce something revolutionary. It proposes something evolutionary in relation to national park purposes. It would ensure that national park authorities function better, better reflect the people whom they represent and bring in people whose commitment as a whole is to national park purposes. It would move the national park movement forward and do it no harm whatsoever.

Eric Forth: I have been happy to allow the hon. Gentleman to range widely in discussing the amendment and, if other Members wish to follow in his wake, I would probably take the view that a clause stand part debate will not be necessary.

Nick Herbert: The amendments are interesting. As we are allowed to range a bit more widely, thanks to your latitude, Mr. Forth, I would like to speak about the proposed national park in the south downs, which highlights some of the issues raised by the hon. Gentleman’s amendments.
It is proposed that a very large national park authority should take over some of the functions of the elected councils in the south downs. The proposed population of 130,000 would be much greater than that of any of the existing parks—three times that of the largest English national park. That would mean that the authority had to deal with 4,500 planning applications a year, nearly four times more than that of the Lake district, which currently handles the largest number. It would mean that the national park area contained 15 local authorities. Mr. Forth, I am coming directly to the substance of the hon. Gentleman’s amendments.
What is proposed for the south downs is a big transfer of power to a body that is in part unelected to deal with things such as the large number of planning applications. Under the proposed composition of the national park authorities as set out in the clause, two fifths of the appointees to the national park authority will be national appointees. That gives rise to two issues: first, the extent to which the national park authority will have democratic legitimacy in the eyes of local people, particularly when it takes decisions on planning matters; and, secondly, whether the proposed size of the national park authority is adequate to carry out all the functions.
The idea that a proportion of the national park authority members should be directly elected is attractive, given that a democratic deficit appears to lie at the heart of the national parks by virtue of the number of appointed members. However, if one then considers that 67 per cent. of Chichester district council’s area would lie in the proposed area of the South Downs national park, one has an odd situation in which the ability of most local councillors in the national park to decide on planning matters would be taken away, yet there would be provision under the hon. Gentleman’s proposal to elect new national park authority members. On the one hand, the existence of a national park in my area would take away the opportunity of people to elect councillors who have a say in planning matters. On the other hand, the hon. Gentleman seeks to give it back. That suggests to me that the proposal is something of a mess, and that the larger the national park, the more the mess.
Will the Minister address this specific issue? What is the appropriate size of a national park authority for an area such as the south downs? The issue was raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin) on Second Reading in relation to the Peak District national park, which is one of the larger parks. It has been suggested that the proposed maximum membership of the national park authority for the Peak District national park should be 30 members. The Countryside Agency recommended in its advice to the Government, however, that a national park authority should have 46 members. The strong view of West Sussex county council is that, if the park authority is to handle properly the number of planning applications that local authorities deal with, a park authority of sufficient size will be important.
Will the Minister explain the current thinking about the relevant size of a national park authority should the decision be taken to go ahead with the park in West Sussex? I look forward with great interest to what he has to say about the proposal for direct elections, although I have a feeling that he will not be sympathetic. However, it is right to bear in mind that the creation of such parks has taken away much of the ability of local people to have a say about important matters. That has been thrown into sharp relief by the proposals in my area.
There is a difficulty with translating to England the experience of Scotland with its directly elected members, because I do not think that Scotland has parish councils. By contrast, in the proposed area of  the South Downs national park, for instance, there are 186 parish councils. There is a potential for confusion: the enormous amount of potential democracy that seems to be attractive in principle, is likely to create a tremendous mess in practice.

Jim Knight: Given the context, and your advice, Mr. Forth, about a stand part debate, I shall start by sketching out what the clause does. I shall try to do that briefly, and then to address directly the amendments tabled and the comments made by the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Herbert).
The clause improves the arrangements of the appointing of members to national park authorities, in order to make the system more responsive to local needs and more efficient. It has three elements. Subsection (2) allows more flexibility when setting the mix of local authority, parish and so-called national members on national park authorities. It specifies that the local authority and, in England, parish members together must always outnumber the national members, in order to enforce the issue of democratic deficit, which I will discuss later. Within that, the subsection allows the precise mix for each park to be set by secondary legislation, so that we can allow for differences in areas such as the Peak District national park.
Subsections (3) to (5) deal with the problem of interregnums, which was identified in the 2002 Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs review of English national park authorities. Subsection (6) allows the national members to serve for up to four years at a time, thus putting them on the same footing as local and parish members. That is what we are setting out to do in the clause, and I hope that the Committee will support it.
The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire is a great champion of national parks and of the particular cause of direct election, about which he has spoken to me. I am sure that the Committee appreciates his commitment to and experience of national parks. He raises one of the old chestnuts of the national parks world: among the members of a national park authority, there should be a certain number who are directly elected to that position. I understand why he feels obliged to raise the issue again, but the fact is that the question of directly elected members for English and Welsh park authorities was debated when the existing legislation was enacted. The matter was looked at again during the English and Welsh reviews and it has never commanded general support, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough said. Neither the Association of National Park Authorities nor the Council for National Parks supports the idea.
National park authorities are unique bodies. We need to recognise that and devise our approach accordingly. They have many of the characteristics of local authorities, including being subject to most of the generic local government legislation, but they also have some of the features of a non-departmental  public body. That duality reflects their dual responsibilities. First, they serve the country as a whole. The parks are national assets, after all, and we should continue to celebrate the fact that we have national parks so that we can look after and enjoy them. Secondly, the authorities have a direct responsibility to those who live in the park, whom the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire speaks for so eloquently.
The current arrangements reflect the unique role of the national parks very well. At present, each authority has some members who have been elected to local authorities in the area, some members who have been recruited through a national competition, and in England, some members who have been elected to parish councils. That mix gives them the broad range of skills and expertise that they need and it ensures that they do not overlook their local or, crucially, their national responsibilities.
The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs raised the issue of the democratic deficit. In respect of the south downs specifically, I act in a quasi-judicial way regarding the public inquiry so I cannot comment specifically on issues relating to the south downs because that would prejudice that process. I know that that will frustrate him, but I am not in a position to comment on the situation. I shall try to comment on the principle of what he said about democratic deficit.
I would argue that no such problem exists. Elected members—those who have been elected to county, district, unitary or parish councils, or those elected as chairs of parish meetings—are in a majority at present and will remain so under the change envisaged in the clause. They can be replaced by their appointing authorities whenever they are re-elected as councillors and the so-called national members are recruited by an open competition done in accordance with the spirit of guidance issued by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments.
The current arrangements are clear, transparent and accountable. They ensure that each tier of local government, plus the national interest, is represented. That may well mean that a broader mix of interests will have a say in deciding planning applications than would be the case in a local authority, but that is appropriate given the dual nature of what national park authorities do. Of course, the statutory framework for planning, including the scope for appeals, applies just as much to decisions taken by the national park authority as it does to decisions taken elsewhere by directly elected local authorities.
The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs also raised the questions asked by the right hon. Member for West Derbyshire on Second Reading, to which I shall briefly refer. Clause 57 is not a ploy to allow smaller national park authorities. We are considering the mix of members, not the number of them, which will be set by secondary legislation. In addressing the mix, we will not do anything to diminish what I said earlier about ensuring that elected members are in the majority. The hon. Gentleman is  correct in saying that DEFRA consulted on a proposal in 2004, which would mean reducing the composition for the Peak District national park from 38 to 30 members; Dartmoor, Exmoor, the Lake District, the North York Moors and the Yorkshire Dales would be reduced from 26 to 22 members; and the New Forest and Northumberland would continue with 22 members. I can tell the Committee that I have decided that those reductions should go ahead from 2007. I have written to the right hon. Member for West Derbyshire to inform him of that because he raised the matter directly on Second Reading. I shall lay a statutory instrument before Parliament to achieve that in due course. I do not rule out further changes, but I have no plans at present to reduce the size of national park authorities further.
Returning to the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire, we have different arrangements in Scotland, Wales and England. That reflects devolution, and we should celebrate that. The arrangements in Scotland seem to be working reasonably well and I do not deny that, but Scotland does not have parish councils and the directly elected members are in lieu of parish council members in England.

Roger Williams: My understanding is that in England the representatives from parish councils are appointed by the Secretary of State anyway, so they are just another form of appointment by the Secretary of State.

Jim Knight: Up to a point I cannot argue with that, but they are there by virtue of their election to parish councils first and foremost. The Secretary of State cannot appoint someone who is not on the parish council in the national park authority area. We can argue about the semantics and the details of how that works, but they are there by virtue of their election and the fact that they represent local people in the park.
We have different arrangements, but the real test of the current system is whether it works and it seems to me that it does. The authors of the 2002 review certainly seem to think that it works. They said that they
“were not persuaded that directly elected members would bring clear benefits”.
The separate review of the Welsh national park authorities also found no consensus on this issue. The Welsh Assembly will consult later this year on possible changes to the existing appointment arrangements in Wales, where there are no parish councils.
I am sure that the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire would not want this Committee in Westminster to impose a solution and to pre-empt the outcome of the devolved Assembly’s consultation. We in London should not impose a solution on Wales, and there can be no greater champion of that in the Committee than the hon. Gentleman. I hope that he will make his case about direct elections as assertively to the review as he made it to the Committee today. I wish him all the best in what he has set out to achieve in this Parliament—direct election to national park authorities in Wales.
In short, I see no need for a directly elected component. To introduce one could unbalance the approach that has proved successful since independent national park authorities were established. I invite the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.

Roger Williams: Thank you, Mr. Forth, for your tolerance. It was essential to put the amendments in the context of the way national parks work in this country and other areas. No one would be concerned about appointing a body to look after a wilderness, but it is appropriate to have an element of democracy in organisations that look after the affairs of people who live in national parks. The Minister said that this was an old chestnut, but even old chestnuts sometimes germinate, grow, flower and flourish. It is about time this old chestnut did exactly that.
The Minister said that the matter was considered as part of the quinquennial review of national parks in England, and it was certainly considered in Wales. This is English-Welsh legislation. The Assembly Member for Brecon and Radnorshire, Kirsty Williams, and I made strong representations to the review in Wales on direct elections. Surprisingly, the organisation that was established to carry out that consultation said that although there was no consensus, they could see many good reasons for direct elections and that the objections did not carry much weight. When the Minister in the Welsh Assembly responded to that, the Assembly Committee rejected his response and said that he should go away and think about it again. It was not referring to direct elections in particular; it was talking about the response to the quinquennial review. There is concern in Wales, and where Wales leads, I am sure that everybody else will follow, as they always do.
The fact remains that the limitations of the devolution settlement mean that the only way we will achieve direct elections to national parks in Wales is by primary legislation in this place. That is part of the reason why I tabled the amendment, although direct elections would work in England as well. The Minister says, “Why should Westminster dictate to Wales?” He will realise that I am not seeking legislation that will direct the Assembly in Wales; I am seeking legislation that enables the Assembly to do something, although the wording of the amendment may not carry that meaning. In a way, the amendment puts down a maker, but it is also a bit more than that. The time has come for people who live in national parks to have the power to elect their own representatives. I had hoped to unite the Committee on this issue, but I am afraid that I will have to divide it.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided:  Ayes 2, Noes 8.

NOES

Question accordingly negatived.
Clause 57 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 58 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 59 - Notification of agricultural operations on moor and heath in National Parks

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

James Paice: I want to take the opportunity to raise a point that has been raised with me, and, I suspect, other members of the Committee, by the National Farmers Union. It has asked what is the point of this clause. As far as I can see, there is no dissent from the principle of what is being addressed, but the NFU thinks that the whole clause is unnecessary. The original power was enacted as long ago as 1968 as far as Exmoor was concerned. The power was included in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which the clause is intended to amend. The power has rarely been used. According to the regulatory impact assessment, it has been used only three times since the 1980s. Basically, it provides a cooling-off period of up to three months for national park authorities to consider a proposal, which could be extended by another nine months if the authorities decide to decline. That is a sensible approach and we do not take issue with it.
However, the clause would transfer the power to oblige notification of operations on moors and heaths in national parks from Ministers to the national park authorities. Orders would no longer be subject to parliamentary approval. The rationale advanced is that that will simplify the process and reduce the burden on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs following the efficiency scrutiny of local authority consent regimes that was conducted as long ago as 1997. So, in truly efficient style, it has taken us eight years to take action to enable orders to be processed more quickly.
But—this is a big “but” and the point of my speech—the NFU argues that the process has been superseded. I agree with the NFU. Section 42 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act is obsolete because of the obligations that now exist. Any plan to change the use of land by bringing uncultivated land or semi-natural areas into intensive agricultural use requires DEFRA’s consent under the environmental impact assessment regulations that came into force on 1 February 2002. The contention is that the 2002 regulations have effectively made the part of section 42 that we are amending obsolete. The regulations give  the Secretary of State the power to serve stop orders on anyone who starts a project without the necessary consent. If convicted, the person faces unlimited fines.
Even more importantly, those regulations go much further than the narrow clause does. They cover a much wider range of types of land—including wetlands and unimproved grassland such as down-land and scrubland not just the moorland and heath referred to in clause 59. So I, and the NFU, contend that the environmental impact assessment regulations provide much broader protection for such land than section 42 or clause 59 orders could possibly do.
It seems to me that the noble attempt by the Government to simplify the process is actually making it more complicated, because the administrative and bureaucratic burden created by having two different types of orders—DEFRA processing one type and, if the clause goes through, the national parks authority processing the other—is potentially much broader. It would obviously lead to duplication and confusion. How would a farmer in a national park know which type of order to apply for or whether to apply for both?
There is an important point. Based on the information that the NFU has provided to the Committee, it seems to me that the clause is pointless because the Government have already enacted regulations that render the power that it grants obsolete. I would be grateful for the Minister’s observations.

Jim Knight: I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman raised the issue and has given me the opportunity to seek to clarify it.
The clause helps better protect long-standing moors and heaths in national parks from forestry operations, planning and other activities that would convert them into agricultural land and that is likely to affect the land’s character or appearance. The effect of the provision in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 is to stop those potentially harmful activities for up to a year so as to allow the farmer and the national park authority to come to an agreement about how best to manage the land in question. Although the provision whereby the Secretary of State makes an order gives protection to threatened land, it relies, in practice, on someone else asking the Secretary of State to make the order.
In the few cases in which a request has been made to the Secretary of State, that request has always come from a national park authority. So, the Secretary of State has ended up doing something that the national park authority is perfectly capable of doing itself. Although the need for such orders is rare, when a request for an order is made, it must, by its nature, be made quickly, for example, to stop a farmer who has begun ploughing valuable unspoiled moorland or heath in a national park.
The last order in 2001 was made within 24 hours of a request being made by the Peak District national park authority. The Bill will give the power to make an order to national park authorities rather than the Secretary of State. That will save valuable time in that  a park authority need not ask the Secretary of State to make an order but could make it without delay. Time is of the essence if potentially environmentally damaging activities are to be stopped and an acceptable solution found. The transfer of power from the Secretary of State to the national park authorities will simplify the administrative process and reduce the bureaucratic burden accordingly.
The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) and, through him, the NFU have raised some questions, and I shall try briefly to answer them. There are two essential reasons for introducing the power. We are required to take action following the identification of this power in the 1997 efficiency scrutiny of local authority consent regimes. The provision will simplify that process, because at present an order is made by the Secretary of State following a request from a national park authority. Transferring the power straight to the authority clearly simplifies the process.
There are additional benefits. The potential for time saving could mean that ecologically valuable land that might have been lost will be saved. The provision will not place any additional burdens on farmers. The power to restrict ploughing and certain other farming activities on moor and heath already exists; only the body applying the power will change. The provision will not place any unwanted administrative burden on the national park authority, partly because the power is rarely used, and because it will save the authority the bureaucratic burden of applying to the Secretary of State.
The hon. Gentleman rightly raised the question of the power’s relationship with environmental impact assessment regulations, and in that context he suggested, “Why bother at all?” There are conceivable circumstances in which the power would still be required if the environmental impact assessment regulations were modified, for example on plots of environmentally valuable land below any area threshold. Not having the power at all could lead to the loss of such environmentally important but small areas.
Finally the hon. Gentleman suggested that the power may cause confusion, which may lead to abuse by national park authorities. The power has existed for many years, and it has co-existed with the environmental impact assessment regulations. The section 42 power of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 can be used in some circumstances in which the regulations might not bite. All that we are changing is that the national park authorities will use the power rather than the Secretary of State. On the very few occasions that an order has been made by the Secretary of State, the national park authority has requested it.
I trust that that clarifies matters for the Committee. In essence, we are trying to simplify and streamline the process. It is rarely required, but still, it is required.

James Paice: The Minister had obviously seen the same paperwork, and I am grateful to him for seeking to respond. Will he clarify an issue about the environmental impact assessment regulations? He said that they have all existed for a long while, but those  regulations have existed for only three years. The last instance of using section 42 of the 1981 Act that he quoted predated those regulations, as it was in 2001 in the Peak District national park. I am therefore still unclear about his suggestion of a hypothetical instance in which an action to destroy land would fall through a hole in the environmental impact assessment regulations. He talks about an instance if the minimum areas were changed. Are the Government planning to change them? Where is the confusion that the Minister discusses?

Jim Knight: The environmental impact assessment regulations in section 42 of the 1981 Act have slightly different definitions of land. For example, the regulations require intensified agricultural operations, while section 42 simply refers to ploughing and other agricultural activities, such as forestry, that affect the character and the experience of land. The section 42 order can be made more quickly than the environmental impact assessment regulations can be implemented. There may be circumstances in which it is more appropriate in terms of speed to use that provision.
With regard to the size of the parcel of land that we are discussing, the regulations are being reviewed, and the threshold may be considered in that review. We want to keep open the option of the national park authority using the threshold in order to protect environmentally sensitive land.

Question put and agreed to.
Clause 59 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 60 - Functions of Broads Authority and others in relation to the Broads

Jim Knight: I beg to move amendment No. 142, in clause 60, page 24, line 13, leave out
‘by grants under section 15 of the 1988 Act’
and insert—
‘otherwise than by means of —
(a)charges of a kind mentioned in section 13(1) of the 1988 Act, or
(b)levies under section 14(1) of the 1988 Act.’.
The intention of subsection (4) was to prevent any increase in spending arising from the rewording of the first two purposes, which did not relate to navigation, from falling on either the local authorities and council tax payers or on the navigation toll payers. However, the original wording went a little too wide and might also have precluded a number of other sources of funding. The amendment will focus protection on the two specific groups to which the provision was always meant to apply: local authorities and the toll payers.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 60, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 61 - Restriction on creation of new public rights of way

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

John Mann: I have had a good look at the clause and I am a little concerned about whether the proposals will do exactly what the Government intend. I would like to tease out the Minister’s intentions on that. I have spent quite a lot of time considering the clause in the context of the whole of part 6, and looking at what the problem is. I fear that we may end up unremittingly with the current wording. It is not the specifics of that wording but the design of the whole clause that is too harsh. It does not deal with the big problem.
In my constituency, and all over the country, the big problem is that we have lots of automatic upgrades from roads used as public paths to byways open to all traffic—from RUPPs to BOATs—going on because of an anomaly in previous legislation. The anomaly is best illustrated by my constituency because dozens of upgrades are proposed there. Under the anomaly in current legislation, in order to upgrade from what I shall call bridle ways as a generic term—although it is not always technically accurate—to a byway open to all traffic, which can be used by motorbikes, quad bikes, 4x4s and anything else people drive, people make applications based on historic rights. If someone can prove the historic rights, that is the sole definition under which the upgrade has to be judged. Nothing else is taken into account: environmental issues, changes in the countryside and crime and disorder issues are all put to one side. If the historic rights for a vehicle—which really means a horse and cart—can be demonstrated, an automatic upgrade will go through.
I am sure that the Minister, like his predecessor, will confirm that there have been debates on the matter on the Floor of the House. We have a group of people scouring historic maps to find where those rights are; I believe the legislation gives them a period of 25 years in which to do so. Large numbers of upgrades are taking place. I shall explain why my constituency is as good an example of the absurdity of this anomaly as is found anywhere in the country.

James Paice: I am, I suspect, in sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s point but I am slightly puzzled as to why he is making it now. Clause 61 is about the future, and it precisely addresses his concerns. Clause 62—to which I have tabled amendments about commencement, which we shall debate at a later stage—deals with the point that he is making about the scouring of maps that is being done before the Bill is enacted.

John Mann: If I were happy with the hon. Gentleman’s amendments, I would have restricted my remarks to them and to the discussion on clause 62, but  I am not, as they miss the point. Hence, it is appropriate for me to make my comments on clause 61 because I am unhappy with it.
I am unhappy not with the Government’s intent, but with the consequences of the clause. The danger with the debate about the future date of commencement that the hon. Gentleman was attempting not to entice me into but to defer me to—of course, there is an issue there—is that its context is all or nothing. I am not and never have been interested in all or nothing. My constituents and I are interested in removing an anomaly. Therefore, I wish to tease out from the Minister whether the Government propose to remove the anomaly and do nothing else, because if the anomaly in the law is removed, my constituents and I will be happy. We will be happy because we know that if we could use all the factors to challenge anyone’s desire to upgrade, the applications in my area would be unlikely to succeed. The phrase “all the factors” includes environmental issues, other uses, current uses, changes in the countryside, the spread of urbanisation, crime and disorder issues and the opinion of the local population and of parish, district and county councils—they could all be brought into the equation.
I am not bothered whether someone can propose to upgrade a route, but I am bothered that such a proposal is judged solely on historic rights. If someone can put a coherent case for saying that there should be a route in my area for trail riders—to take one of the categories of would-be users—and the objections against it are spurious, I would be quite happy with it, but I am not happy about the fact that such routes are being determined on one anomalous issue.
With your knowledge of history, Mr. Forth, I am sure that you know very well why my constituency is a good example. Where did the King’s armies camp on their way to the battle of Culloden? They camped on Clarborough hill in my constituency, which just happens to be where many of the upgrade applications have been proposed. Why did the armies camp there on their way to glory at Culloden? Because the River Trent is forded in my constituency.
There are earlier precedents. Why did the Romans build a settlement at Littleborough in my constituency? Because in Roman times the River Trent was forded there. If one wished to go from Italy to Scotland, at some stage they had to get across the River Trent. The fact that Romans’ chariots used the route—it is called the great north road, and their presence can be proven—is sufficient to create an automatic upgrade for motorised vehicles today. Mr. Forth, I know that you are fascinated by my historic examples. I could give more, but I think that I have done enough to illustrate the absurdity of the current anomaly.
 Strangely, on Clarborough hill and in Sturton, the village that has grown up alongside the route to the Trent at Littleborough, lots of applications have been made for upgrades. We are not talking about trail rides that cut across the country; when people go down these routes, they end up at the River Trent. Unless  somebody creates some kind of river-crossing vehicle to transport the bikes, they will be going there and then coming back. I have looked at many examples from across the country and I have received much correspondence, not all of it very polite, but this example illustrates probably better than any other the fact that I have seen the absurdity of the current anomaly. That anomaly needs rectifying, but the clause might not do that.
The issue is whether people will have the right to make other proposals. In that context, there is the issue of any delay in commencement. The words “after commencement” are included in the clause. The amendment tabled by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire should also have related to clause 61, because the issue of commencement means that the problem is that, as the applications are being made, timing becomes important.
The county council in my constituency says that current applications will take three or four years. There are many applications in my constituency—far more than the Department reports in its survey. It reports that there are nine in my constituency. Well, there are nine on Clarborough hill; there are many more in my constituency. The facts that the Government are using to make decisions are not accurate. There is already a whole series of applications in just that one small area of my constituency.
It is not trail riders who are using the routes; it is what might euphemistically be called youths on bikes, and the activity is sometimes organised. That is to say, a white van appears, a lot of youths get out and on to their bikes or quad bikes and charge round these routes, some of which are circular and make rather good race tracks. They, and not the trail riders who are trying to go from one part of the country to another while viewing wonderful scenery, use the tracks. We are talking about an organised business, with youths in particular going at tremendous speeds, scaring horses, causing great danger and damage, and terrifying walkers, dog walkers and people living in those communities. All hon. Members present can rehearse those arguments at great length.
I want the Bill to ensure that that anomaly is removed immediately and that current applications that have not been determined are not determined solely on historic rights. Will part 6 rectify that? Does it do more than that? Will it fully and comprehensively rectify that problem?

Tony Baldry: Like the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who has made an excellent speech, I am unhappy. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire and the Minister can explain either in relation to this clause or the next one how they could make me happy. I am not the only person who is unhappy: there are also my hon. Friends the Members for Wantage (Mr. Vaizey), for Henley (Mr. Johnson) and for Witney (Mr. Cameron), the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) and the right hon.  Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith). Indeed, all Oxfordshire Members of Parliament are unhappy about the way in which the Ridgeway is being treated.
The Ridgeway stretches about 85 miles from Overton hill in Wiltshire to Ivinghoe beacon in Buckinghamshire. It is England’s oldest green road and it dates back to the earliest days of agriculture and inter-regional trade in this country 6,000 years ago. Probably when the Romans were not heading up to the River Trent, they were going along the Ridgeway. It is an historic feature of European importance and, because of its upland location, it ought to be a site of great natural beauty.
The present state of the Ridgeway is unhappy. That is the result of a combination of factors, the most fundamental of which is the growth in the number and variety of motor vehicles that use the Ridgeway. That has exposed the ancient highway to a host of new pressures. In recent years, there has been a phenomenal increase in the number of off-road motor bikes and 4x4 motor cars. Those vehicles destroy the surface of the Ridgeway. In wet weather, huge sections of the Ridgeway become a sea of mud and deep puddles. In dry weather, the surface sets into a series of ankle-twisting, knee-wrenching ruts.
The Ridgeway is a species of common land; it is an important part of our national heritage. It is important in giving access to the countryside to walkers and others. It is a common asset, and one would hope that new Labour recognises the need to protect public assets as much as private property. I want to know how we are going to prevent motor vehicles from having access to the Ridgeway. I can see no justification for 4x4 vehicles trundling along the Ridgeway and it being churned up in that way.
Even as a lawyer and even with an interpretation clause, I find clauses 61 and 62 difficult to interpret. My concern is that we have been here before and we received promises in the consultation document, “The Use of Mechanically Propelled Vehicles on Rights of Way”. In that document, Ministers said:
“We propose to introduce legislation, which will make it no longer possible to establish the existence of a byway open to all traffic by reference to historic (pre-commencement) use by, or other evidence relating to, non-mechanically propelled vehicles”.
I, like the hon. Member for Bassetlaw, assume that that means the horse and cart. The consultation document went on to say:
“We propose to do this by introducing a cut-off date after which (subject to certain exceptions) any unrecorded rights of way for vehicles shall be recorded as restricted byways in the definitive map and statement
We propose that the cut-off date should be one year from the commencement of the new legislation.”
I tell the Minister that if that is what the Bill does, people in Oxfordshire will feel betrayed. People will be desperately unhappy because they want there to be no vehicular access along the Ridgeway. They can see no justification for the Ridgeway being churned up by 4x4 vehicles, trail bikes and so forth.
If the best the Government can do is say, “In certain other areas, if it isn’t already a byway open to all traffic, we can do something about it. But we’re terribly  sorry that if the Ridgeway has been used by vehicular traffic in the past, you’re stuck with such traffic for ever”, that is a real betrayal of the countryside.
If I am wrong and the Minister can tell me that he will ban traffic on the Ridgeway, there will be much rejoicing in Oxfordshire. Bells will be ringing in the village churches. If he is not, people will be deeply unhappy. This is an issue of real resonance in Oxfordshire. People, families and others want to go out to walk there. If one is taking one’s children or family out for a walk, it is disastrous if one is beleaguered by people racing up and down a natural feature of our countryside that was never intended for that purpose.

Madeleine Moon: The Bill is an opportunity for us to consider our past and our future. In many respects, we are trying to protect our past and heritage by protecting our natural landscape and our biodiversity. We are trying to recognise that there is a great danger that much that we have that is specific, precious and unique to this island could be lost unless we take responsibility.
At the same time, however, the clause seems to bring together that strange past of an England of horse and carts with today. We are trying to prevent the loss of biodiversity caused by our modern lifestyle, but we are not protecting it from one of the greatest causes of damage: the motor vehicle. We are not trying to limit access to the countryside.
I moved to Wales 30-odd years ago when my husband, who is an ecologist, became the first warden of what was then a local nature reserve but is now a national nature reserve and a European site of special nature conservation. We spent much of those early years battling against trail bikers on the reserve who carved up a precious and fragile landscape. Much as the hon. Member for Bassetlaw described, a white van would arrive and out would come the trail bikes, many of them unlicensed and uninsured, and off the bikers would go across the reserve.
In the Bill we are looking for sustainability, but we cannot sustain what is happening at the moment. We have tighter and tighter legislation and management of traffic on our roads, so many people are seeking their thrills and spills with their motor vehicles by going off road. They are carving up the countryside with their trail bikes, Land Rovers and so on to get the excitement that, thanks to speed cameras, they are no longer allowed to get by speeding along motorways.
We have said that the Bill must be cost-neutral and we are seeking to achieve that. However, in many local authorities the cost of examining applications for upgrading to BOATs is tremendous. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw described the number of applications in his constituency and the green lanes coalition said that many local authorities must consider a huge number of applications. That will not be cost-neutral. Like other hon. Members, I ask the Minister to explain how we can protect biodiversity, as well as those habitats that in other parts of the Bill we have clearly signalled our intention to protect, unless  we tighten up and include in applications for upgrading to BOATs other areas and other issues, including biodiversity and the impact on it.

Roger Williams: I support the clause because, while I applaud the work of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw in identifying an historic anomaly and of the then Minister, the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Alun Michael) in his consultation, we all realise that to upgrade from a RUPP to a BOAT on the basis of historic use a long time ago, whether by the Royalists or the Romans, is not the right way to proceed.
My regret in the Bill is that we are not addressing the real issues, which is to put rights of way legislation in place so that we have a rights of way network for the 21st century rather than the 20th, 19th or 18th centuries. People’s needs, whether to get from one place to another or for recreation, have changed and we are using an out-of-date system to meet their needs.
I welcome the clause because, as the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire said, it looks to the future. There are opportunities in the countryside for walkers, people who ride horses and people who use mechanically propelled vehicles. The question is, whether they are doing those things in a way that sustains the resource that they want to enjoy, or in a way that destroys it.
One can make a case that walkers cause a huge amount of erosion. In fact, one of the most costly exercises that was undertaken in the Brecon Beacons national park was to restore the path up Pen-y-Fan, which is the highest point in the Brecon Beacons. The erosion was caused entirely by walkers, and repairing it was hugely expensive. I can point to many such instances in my constituency.

Madeleine Moon: Has the hon. Gentleman considered other costs? Restoring a footpath to the top of Pen-y-Fan would be expensive, but one seeks to get people involved in healthy exercise and in visiting and enjoying the countryside. Has he compared the costs of footpath restoration with the year-on-year costs of restoring many other habitats because just one vehicle—not hundreds of walkers—has gone across a piece of land?

Roger Williams: I take the hon. Lady’s point, but I am also making the point that all forms of access to the countryside bring problems. Indeed, the commercial use by pony trekking organisations of rights of way can cause a problem as well. One often sees on open countryside that pony trekkers have used a right of way but then have gone farther and farther away from it as it becomes impassable due to their use of it.
I look to this clause, which deals with people who want to access the countryside on mechanically driven vehicles, as a way forward. I think of a bank manager  who lives in Rhayader in my constituency. Three days a week he walks in the countryside, but two days a week he sets off across the countryside from Rhayader to Tregaron on his motorbike. He has his sandwiches on top of the hill or wherever, but when he leaves nobody knows that he has been there. Is he causing a problem in the countryside? No, he is not, but he is getting enjoyment from it. We should be making legislation that allows that to happen.
The other thing is that there is huge demand. If we say no to such people, all we do is create a pent-up demand that will break out somewhere. We must make provision. Clause 61 allows us to do that, but on the basis of what is and is not acceptable, rather than the historic anomaly that has been identified by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw and others.

James Paice: Like the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire, I support clause 61 because it begins the process of stopping the anomaly that the hon. Member for Bassetlaw described—the fact that one can trace historic rights back to all sorts of previous things. Obviously, we shall discuss later how to adjust the process.
I am not sure that I am particularly proud that Richard Cumberland parked in my constituency, bearing in mind that he then went on to inflict the nearest thing to genocide that we have ever had in this country. Nevertheless, the hon. Member for Bassetlaw is right: it is absurd that somebody can use horse and cart or even chariot traffic in history to say that people ought to be able to use a route for four-wheel drives or whatever today. That is clearly daft, and I support the Government in trying to get rid of it.
I confess that I found the issue that the hon. Member for Bassetlaw addressed difficult to follow at times; my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) made it absolutely clear. The issue is whether we set about retrospectively removing the right to use routes such as the Ridgeway, where the right is already established. That is not clearly addressed in the clause. Perhaps we shall discuss it at a later stage. No one has tabled an amendment, but it would have been helpful if someone had done so. I confess that I have not, but I hope that the Minister will address the issue when he responds. In any case, clause 61 as it stands is a significant step in the right direction.
I understand the comments made by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire on making provision for those who want to carry out certain activities on trails and so on, but the answer is that within the context of the use of land, not necessarily as a right of way but for commercial activity by farmers and landowners—

It being twenty-five minutes past Ten o’clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned till this day at One o’clock.